66 John Robinson, the pastor of the New-England pilgrims; to John Cotton, he who, in the language of his biographer, was one of those olive trees which afford a singular measure of oil for the illumination of the Sanctuary”—to John Fisk, who for "twenty years did shine in the golden candlestick of Chelmsford"-to Brewster-to Mather-to any of those fathers of the American church, to revisit this world, what would they not lament of the descendants of the Pilgrims! * * * * * I have conjured up spirits! I am compelled, by an impulse which I cannot resist, to go on. I seem to hear some wailing ghost cry aloud—“ There are more sorrowful changes in the body and spirit of the reformed church than in the fashion of the hymn tunes! Where are the ministers of religion, who occupied the pulpits a few years since? where are their churches? where are the altars which our fathers builded, and where are the graves and bones of our fathers?" Alas! poor ghost! thou knowest not that "the age of bargaining is come," and that the Reformed church is a trafficker in the market, selling her sanctuaries for gold, and committing sacrilege for silver. The pious dead shall sleep no more in quiet graves. "Requiescat in pace!" shall henceforth be quoted in the price-current! The departed brethren in communion, who were committed to the earth beneath the shadows of those sacred walls where first they knew the glad offices of the gospel, shall be turned out of their narrow tenements to make room for bankers and speculators ! Do I speak lies? Go to the Wall-street church and get the flagrant proof. "It smells to Heaven!" That christian church draws a revenue from suits of offices for trade and barter which she has erected upon the graves of her children; and brokers and attorneys-how can I speak it-find VOL. II.-9 the way to the temple of a heathen goddess,—not the altar of Fortune nor the temple of Fame,-paved with old grave-yard stones of the members of a christian congregation? Dr. Romeyn! come not back to look for thy church in Cedar Street! It is clean gone. The merchants, who bought it, bade a liberal price. They sing no hymn tunes there now. The ground is consecrated to cotton, coffee, and dry goods. The congregation have gone up town and built a splendid cathedral. Go thou there, and see how glorious be the scarlet, and gilt, and fine chased work of this reformed church. But tell that minister to doff his humble suit of black. It accords not with his pulpit. See! looks he not like a beetle in a gold snuff box? McLeod! departed thunderer against the Pope, sleep on! 'Sleep on, nor from thy cerements burst." Hear not the whispered horror. There are pictures hung up behind thine ancient altar-and candles are burned there in the day-time, and strange tunes are played upon an organ -and Latin is chanted there-and a silver bell is tinkledand frankincense is burned before the people; but there is not a bible nor a Scotch hymn book in the church! and the people do not sing, but they cross themselves! Sleep on,sleep on, sweet shade; too happy to have bee ncalled away !* Garden Street Church is a heap of burned ruins. But the number of building lots has been counted, and the elders already feel the price within their grasp, and the name shall no longer be " Garden Street Church," but "Exchange Place Hotel!" The Old Middle Dutch yet stands. O, may not that church * It ought to be said, in justice to this church, that the sale of their old meeting-house is to be lamented with them as a necessity, and not to be charged against them as an offence. They were driven to a sale by the result of a chancery suit, which imposed upon them the payment of large sums of money, and they could not pick their purchasers. be spared! May there not remain one unviolated tabernacle in this part of the city; if for nothing else than to remind us that there were Christians here in old times, and out of respect and regard for the memory of our forefathers? The Brick Church.-I wish that I might be spared this task. But I cannot-I cannot forget that they, too, have agreed to sell their church and grave-yard,—to be used for a public post office and that a decree has gone forth that the officers of the customs shall sit in the vault of my grandmother! The city corporation have absolved the trustees from their contract with them perpetually to keep sacred the land for a burial-ground. But have the people been released from their covenant to God, to respect the sepulchres of their brethren? Who has given them a dispensation to break open the cave of Macpelah? Or is there no moral or religious obligation"These bones from insult to protect ?" Is the word "sacrilege" abolished from our language? But to what plea does this church fly for excuse? Can she complain that she is crowded out by the storehouses of trade and commerce, and that her people live so far off that they cannot walk to meeting? No, no. The brick church stands exactly where it should,-in the centre of the citynear the halls of Justice-on the public park; and it is isolated, and occupies an entire block, having no next door neighbors to annoy it or to hide it. Its familiar steeple towers where strangers and sojourners will naturally see it, and it is in the way of such as may inquire, "Where is a Presbyterian church?" The temples of God ought to be built in public places. They should not be hid behind'dwelling-houses, like Chatham Chapel and the Tabernacle, nor in narrow lanes, like that one amid the pollution of Duane and Church streets. Pull down the old Brick Church! That church known all over the christian world as a highly favored church,—a church of eminent graces! It would be a fit work for the infidels who razed Jerusalem-and to disturb the grave-yard— the proper office of hyenas! O! if the bond be not sealed, if the bargain be not irrevocably concluded, let the church save herself from the sin of this eternal condemnation. Let her send back the wretched pieces of silver! Tears-tears-tears-I fear I have said too much. "And all this bold wrath comes out of a dissertation on hymn tunes!" I think I hear my reader say. And I see some austere person rising and preparing to censure the plainness of my speech to the churches. He is learned, and well armed with all sorts of weapons of argument. comes at me first in Latin, quoting Terence : "Nonne id flagitium est, te aliis consilium dare He which being interpreted freely, means, "is not this a flagitious piece of impudence in an unknown layman like you to get up in the synagogue and lecture the elders, to be wise and pious about other people's crimes, while by your own confession you are an unannointed reprobate?" Spare me, spare me-most merciful inquisitor. I waited until all those who had a right to speak before me, might speak; but they were silent. I felt it my duty then to disburthen my heart. Sinner as I am, I do yet take deep interest in the welfare and honor of the reformed republican church. I am a descendant of the pilgrims, and it is not I, but their blood, that speaks. The cause is the cause of patriotism as well as piety. With one of the departed saints I feel and say,—and I commend this as part of his testament, to those who are trying to improve upon God's institutions, "I shall count my country lost, in the loss of the primitive principles, and the primitive practices, upon which it was first established." A WARNING VOICE AGAINST FAS CINATION. PHILOMATHES. What can be the reason that there are twenty women given to that craft where there is one man? EPISTEMON. The reason is easie, for as that sexe is frailer than man is, so it is easier to be entrapped into these gross snares of the deuil, as was once well proved to be trew, by the serpent's deceiving Eua at the beginning, which makes him the homelier with that sexe sensine. Dæmonologie" by "the most high and mightie Prince JULIET. If they do see thee they will murder thee. ROMEO. Alack! There lies more peril in thine eye, than twenty of their swords. ONE of the earliest victims of the too much indulged crime, whose character and consequences are the subject of the present, discourse, was Patience Delight, a young witch of Franklin, Massachusetts. As her case is pregnant with good caution, and pertinent to the matter in hand, we will premise our observations with a brief statement of her trial. The account is taken from the original manuscript in the handwriting of the venerable Precious Smith, one of the early settlers in Smith's patent, L. I. and Chairman of the board of Commissioners on the occasion of this memorable investigation. The interesting document is preserved in the library of the Syrian Institute of Christian Hook, Matowacs, N. Y. The records runs, as follows: "A trew account of the triall of Patience Delight, &c. May 24, 1692. This being the day sette apart for the triall of that atrocious leaguer with Sathan, I tuck brother Condemned Fish, and Rev. Remember-Lots-wife Parkensen to sit with me in judgment, we being thereto specially commissioned. Opened court in the meet'n house with prayer. |